Heading to Switzerland... swiss pass & glacier express questions..

[skeletor]

Hey all, I'm going to be driving around the romantic road in bavaria germany for a couple of days in Aug and will be dropping my rental car off at Friedrichshafen (it's the closest place I can return a rental on the germany swiss border I think..) to cross into switzerland where I intend to use the rail systems for 4-5 days.. places like raileurope sell a special 4 day swiss pass does anyone have experience with these? Do you guys just plan your trains and show the pass when you're there?? Or do you guys book your train connections in advance somehow?.. I don't have to worry about a train getting full without reserving? I assume a 4 day swiss pass allows me to hope on any boat/train/bus without having to pay any fees at the station.. is this correct?

also I'm considering taking the glacier express from st mortiz to zermatt.. anyone have experience on this? If so where did you book your tickets cheap?
if anyone knows of any good links for finding accommodations please feel free to share them :)

thanks in advance.. here's a sketch of my journey

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/asuma2004/trip2.jpg

[HighFlyer]

places like raileurope sell a special 4 day swiss pass does anyone have experience with these?

You have to buy these before you leave Canada.


Do you guys just plan your trains and show the pass when you're there?? Or do you guys book your train connections in advance somehow?.. I don't have to worry about a train getting full without reserving? I assume a 4 day swiss pass allows me to hope on any boat/train/bus without having to pay any fees at the station.. is this correct?
Yup, with the exception of the special 'express' trains, we just show up and take whatever train we want without advance reservation. You only need to validate the pass before first use. Otherwise, they check your pass onboard. During the 2 wks I was there, there wasn't a time when a train was completely full. Of course this varies with holidays.



also I'm considering taking the glacier express from st mortiz to zermatt.. anyone have experience on this? If so where did you book your tickets cheap?
You need advance reservations ($$$). With a swiss pass, it's only a nominal amount..... something like $20-30CHF.

EDIT: IMO, I'd drop Geneva (unless you have to be there) and stay in St. Moritz or Grindelwald an extra day.

[skeletor]

You have to buy these before you leave Canada.

Yup, with the exception of the special 'express' trains, we just show up and take whatever train we want without advance reservation. You only need to validate the pass before first use. Otherwise, they check your pass onboard. During the 2 wks I was there, there wasn't a time when a train was completely full. Of course this varies with holidays.


You need advance reservations ($$$). With a swiss pass, it's only a nominal amount..... something like $20-30CHF.

EDIT: IMO, I'd drop Geneva (unless you have to be there) and stay in St. Moritz or Grindelwald an extra day.

thanks so Much!!! you have helped a lot in my planning, I been wasting hours trying to connect the cheapest paths until I heard about this pass... My cheapest flight out back to london where I catch a flight toronto is through Geneva at the moment or else I would just also skip it like you say..

Is there any way to tell if my route is using an express train or is that usually only booked privately outside of the public transit? I'm using http://www.sbb.ch/en/index.htm for figuring out the train connections, not sure if this is the best site..
Thanks Again!! :D

[HighFlyer]

The only express train on your route that requires reservations is the Glacier Express. Parts of your Zermatt to Grindewald journey will be on the Matterhorn express, however, that's just a name of the route and your Swiss Pass will cover it entirely without an additional supplement.

[b166er1337]

Hey all, I'm going to be driving around the romantic road in bavaria germany for a couple of days in Aug and will be dropping my rental car off at Friedrichshafen (it's the closest place I can return a rental on the germany swiss border I think..) to cross into switzerland where I intend to use the rail systems for 4-5 days.. places like raileurope sell a special 4 day swiss pass does anyone have experience with these? Do you guys just plan your trains and show the pass when you're there?? Or do you guys book your train connections in advance somehow?.. I don't have to worry about a train getting full without reserving? I assume a 4 day swiss pass allows me to hope on any boat/train/bus without having to pay any fees at the station.. is this correct?

]

HEY!!

I had a similar itinerary 2 years ago, but I started from Switzerland and headed into Bavaria. I took the boat from Romanshorn to Friedrichshafen. I believe Swiss Pass covered half of the ferry cost.

Try not to miss Lindau (only half hour away), and also the Airship museum at Friedrichshafen. Both cities are gorgeous.

I had the 8-day Swiss Youth Pass; basically the pass covered most of the rail lines. However some railroads in Switzerland are privately owned, and the pass will only cover a portion of the ticket cost.

You can check all train schedules on bahn.de or sbb.ch. You can also print out your itinerary from the ticket machine. Don't worry, Swiss trains are comprehensive and you shouldn't have much difficulty there.

Have fun on the autobahn ! :cheesygri

[skeletor]

I been noticing on many of my routes between those cities through www.sbb.ch they use trains like Interregioexpress (IRE), intercity express (ICE), Regioexpress.. so because they have "express" they aren't fully covered with the swiss pass?? or is there discount on them I can find out somehow? At the moment I'm unsure how to use this pass to caculate how much money I need for travel between places.. at the moment I have various routes that take the same time but I'm not sure how much more things would cost even with the pass, anyway I can solve this problem? :(

I'm buying the swiss pass from raileurope.ca (I think it's the only place in canada to get it) is there a way to tell if I have to pay for a route online and how much? The raileurope site has a crippled system and can't really give me a full end to end multichange route for quotes :(


b166er1337 could you give me an estimate to how much did you paid on top of the swiss pass since we travel similar routes?

[b166er1337]

I'm buying the swiss pass from raileurope.ca (I think it's the only place in canada to get it) is there a way to tell if I have to pay for a route online and how much? The raileurope site has a crippled system and can't really give me a full end to end multichange route for quotes :(


b166er1337 could you give me an estimate to how much did you paid on top of the swiss pass since we travel similar routes?

I didn't recall paying supplement fees on ICE, IC and RE trains. The only extra transportation expenditure I spent was on the ferry to Germany, and the pass covered half the cost.

Check out the website
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/Museums_Mountain_top.117.0.html?&L=2

and download the Swiss rail map.
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/fileadmin/pdf/STS-G-M-08-enLOW.pdf

The map shows everything you need to know :cheesygri

The Swiss Pass covers almost all routes.
I bought my Swiss Youth Pass and the pass for "Schilthorn/Piz Gloria " on raileurope.ca, and I later found out that the pass for Schilthorn is actually much cheaper THERE. Apparently raileurope sell these passes at full prices, but you can buy them in Switzerland at 50% off with the Swiss Pass. Bastards.

[nalababe]

WHile we had no problems reserving trains for the French component of our rail pass, the swiss was more difficult. The answer from Rail Europe was to call them instead of using online.

[HighFlyer]

There are no supplementary fees on the ICE, IC and RE trains. The only supplements I had to pay were the Chocolate Express, Glacier Express, Bernina Express, and a few of the trams in Zermatt and those beyond the Wengen station in Bernese Oberland. All of them offered discounts for having a Swiss Pass.

We made all of our reservations (except the Chocolate train) in person at the train station once we got to Switzerland.